


Where It Begins

by matchka



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Backstory, Fifteen Minute Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-16
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2017-12-12 01:39:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/805648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matchka/pseuds/matchka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>15-Minute Fanfic: a short drabble on beginnings, on Vieras in strange bars and what sky pirates smell like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where It Begins

He’s young and quite obviously drunk, eyes bright and marble-glassy, perched precariously on the edge of a table around which sit four equally young, drunken Bhujerban ladies. They cackle raucously at his jokes, although Fran rather doubts they understand a word he’s saying. His accent is refined, practised, crisp despite his advanced state of inebriation; each vowel is carefully pronounced, his pauses timed to perfection. He is accustomed, it seems, to rapt audiences such as the one before him. 

It isn’t hard to see through him, not with a Viera’s acute senses, although sobriety helps; he’s a rich boy playing the rogue, a gentryman whose fine threads and glittering silver adornments betray his moneyed upbringing. And yes, he says all the right things, weaving bold stories of gunfights in the desert, pockets stuffed to bursting with gems and trinkets wrested from foul brigands, and right under their very noses. (His fingers glimmer with rich jewels, fine-boned wrists heavy with gold.) This, at least, is the truth; under the sweet scent of Bhujerban madhu he smells of hot sand and cordite, of sunburn and sweat and high altitudes. A sky pirate, then, albeit an amateur. His lack of subtlety suggests lessons still to be learned.

He senses her presence and turns, mid-sentence, foot propped on an empty wooden stool, mouth poised around a syllable he has yet to deliver. (He has startlingly feminine lips, pleasantly juxtaposed with a proud, masculine jaw. He is a patchwork of opposites.) 

His eyes narrow. He draws himself back and up until he’s standing straight, a series of careful motions marred only slightly by the madhu’s influence. The Bhurjerban girls don’t seem to notice, have barely been following the conversation at all, enthralled by his presence and status and, of course, the jewels, gaudy as a Rabanastran parade. He’s shorter than her by a few hands, slighter than her by a margin also (but he’s young, barely grown into his bones yet, musculature taut and lean and boyish. And if it troubles him, it doesn’t show.) 

Drink-addled he may be, but there’s a sharpness about his face now, midway between suspicion and curiosity. Perhaps, Fran thinks, his naivety is as much a guise as his rough charm.

“In need of assistance?” he asks.

“You are in no state to assist,” Fran counters. She speaks with a Viera’s lack of nuance, almost a monotone, though a practised ear might learn to interpret the subtleties.

“And yet, your presence is persistent.” He’s turned his back to the Bhujerban ladies now; they whisper among themselves, speculating at this sudden intrusion - Viera are uncommon enough in these parts, much less in establishments of low reputation such as this. “I assure you, I’ve enough wits left over to hold a coherent conversation. It would take more than a bottle of madhu to render me incapable.”

Is it a boast? It falls flat; Fran does not care how well the man holds his drink. He must sense this, because his mouth quirks upwards, an ill-concealed smirk. He has intuited that she is here on business matters, and does not look entirely disappointed at that notion.

“I see,” he says. “You’re here with a purpose.”

“I was told,” she replies, “that you have an airship.”


End file.
